h3lltown

Warnings: Mild violence, smoking, prositution, crass language

**********

Maroon sluggishly prepared the drink of the man in front of him.

It was well past midnight and the booming music of the club, combined with his lack of sleep made his thoughts feel like sludge, slowly dripping out of his ears.

He pushed the finished, half-assed cocktail in front of the man and turned around to re-organize the bottles, not wanting to hear his whining.

Tonight was going pretty slow. There weren't any special events going on, not to mention it was a weekday. The few patrons that remained were a few sad old men and a group of teens that definitely weren't old enough to be in here. The dancers were nowhere to be seen, most likely taking a smoke break outside. Nobody thought to turn the music down a little.

No one else was sitting on the bar besides the old cocker spaniel who's drink he probably fucked up, so he gave himself the rare luxury of sitting down for a minute. He could feel a headache starting to form.

He closed his eyes, hoping that that would alleviate some of the pain.

He only had a few seconds of respite before someone very loudly knocked on his bar counter.

He opened his eyes to see a blond rabbit wearing a tube top and a fluffy neon scarf, leaning into the counter while playing with his hair in what Maroon would assume was an attempt to look sexy. It wasn't working. If anything, this dude's presence just made his headache worse.

"What do you want, you stupid hooker?" Maroon asked, like the gentleman he was.

"Oi! I'm not stupid! I went to college!" The rabbit shouted indignantly, ignoring his question.

"And it looks like you're putting your education to great use," Maroon went along with the banter as he opened up a beer bottle for him, already having memorised the other's order. "I bet that business major comes in handy when figuring out how much to charge for a blowjob." He slid the opened beer across the counter.

"Shut your goddamn mouth! And yes, I do find ways to use it." The rabbit took a few sips of his beer.

Maroon crossed his arms, expecting a graphic follow-up of the rabbit's line of work.

He instead just leaned more into the counter, head propped up with his left arm. He looked at his beer, as if it would give him the answer to all his questions.

It was weird; Maroon never saw him this low on energy--not that he was paying attention to that sort of thing.

"What's got the great king Salomon all pouty? Someone stole your lunch money?"

Salomon groaned in annoyance. "Ugh. I'm fine. It's just that-" He hesitated for a moment. "-Nah, it's nothin'."

Maroon rolled his eyes. Of course he's going to have to drag it out of him. Not that he would want to know or anything.

"Either you tell me what's up with you or you get the hell off my bar. You're spoiling the mood."

Salomon sighed and took a big gulp of his drink, "It's just money problems, man."

"All of your problems are always money problems. Which drug dealer do you owe this time?"

Salomon sputtered, trying to find a credible lie.

That's what I thought. "Can't you just ask that cat lady that you're around sometimes for cash? I heard she's like, a millionaire or someth-"

The door to the back of the club opened loudly, out came a blonde cat, clad in a dark grey jacket and jeans, sporting an ugly bruise right in the middle of her face. A few specks of dried blood adorned her snout. Her face showed no apparent emotion, but both men by the counter could feel the heat of anger radiating off her. Speak of the devil.

Maroon was the first to react, "Hey! You're not supposed to be back there-" Cindy walked up to the pair, yanking Salomon from his fluffy scarf, straight to the disgusting ground on the other side of the counter.

"What the hell, is she the one you owe money to!?" Maroon shouted.

"No! I don't know what's happeni-” Cindy picked him up from the ears, earning a pained squeak from Salomon. She dragged him to the back, where she came from. Maroon followed them, not because he cared, because he did not want to be picking up rabbit bits from the storage room. If this lady wanted to to torture Salomon for cash, then she would have to find some other storage room in a shady night club to do it.

Maroon closed the door behind him, taking in the situation. Salomon was clutching the base of his ears in pain, while lying on the ground. Cindy was looking down at him, angry but not showing any signs of aggressiveness beyond that.

Salomon managed to get up again, hugging himself, cold now that his scarf was gone.

"I need to stay with you." Cindy prompted, deadfaced.

Salomon still looked like he was in pain and trying to understand what was. "You want to stay with me...like, at my apartment?"

Cindy nodded.

Salomon sighed in a mix of relief and exasperation. "And you couldn't find an, uh, I don't know, less violent way of asking?"

Cindy didn't answer.

"Okay, okay, you can stay there. You can go right now, Roman's there, Just say that it's you."

Maroon just looked on, glassy-eyed. He was imagining the warmth of his bed, at home, away from whatever this bullshit was.

"No. You are coming with me," Cindy pointed at Maroon, yanking him back to his awful reality. "and this guy too. You both saw me already."

"Huh?" Maroon sputtered. "I'm at- I'm at work! I can't just leave!"

"Yeah! I don't want him in my apartment either, he smells like a wet carpet-"

"I don't smell like anything! I don't want to go there anyways, your house probably looks like the back room of a whorehouse-”

"Shut up, both of you. I don't care. You are coming to Salomon's apartment right now or I'm killing you right now." Cindy spoke up, "And while I’m opposed to leaving a trail of bodies in my current situation, I will shoot you if it gets you out of my way quicker."

Both men stopped their bickering, going deathly still.

Cindy signaled them to follow her out through the back door.

The trio stepped out into the chilly night. Salomon shuddered, his fur standing up. Maroon thought for a second to give him his leather jacket, but discarded the thought. He's the one who dragged me into this. Well, sort of.

They walked together through the grimy, wet streets of New Oclester, Cindy occasionally signaling to walk faster or take a turn through an alleyway, most likely to prevent them from being followed. Maroon didn't understand why she was being so paranoid. Guessing by the bruises and the blood, she probably got into her own trouble and was running from whoever did that to her face.

After what felt like a long, undulating walk through the back alleys of their city that left Maroon feeling dizzy and disoriented, they finally arrived at the familiar street where Babel's Tower was located. The massive building, more akin to a termite mound, towered before them. The building's original name was Harrington apartments, but through the years the other apartments next to it started conglomerating to it; the people who were supposed to run the place hardly showed up, inspiring the tenants to do some renovation of their own.

The three of them went through the main gates, since Salomon’s apartment was one of the inside ones. It was possible to access some of the smaller apartments through the outside stairs, such as Maroon’s place, but they were on the opposite side of the building. That reminded Maroon that he should go check on his little brother, Oscar. But he was most likely asleep by now, and Maroon wasn’t expected to come back home for at least a few more hours. He didn’t want to scare Oscar, making him think he was a burglar.

They all took the stairs since the elevator had been out of service since before any of them started living there. Maroon could almost taste the cigarette smoke and garbage juices stuck to what felt like every surface of the first few floors. The dirty fluorescent lights above them flickered every so often, giving the long, empty halls an eerie atmosphere, especially so late at night. Maroon couldn’t help but shiver; this is why he lived in one of the outside apartments.

They finally reached Salomon’s apartment, on the 4th floor. The man in question knocked a few times, rattling the brass “#9” nailed to the door.

Mumbled curses could be heard coming from the other side. A few seconds later, someone called out.

“I’M BUSY, FUCK OFF!”

“I’S ME DUMBASS, OPEN THE DOOR!” Salomon yelled,”ALSO, COVER YOURSELF, WE GOT PEOPLE OVER!”

More cursing and some rustling could be heard, and after a few seconds a male grizzly bear unlocked the door and walked out, still adjusting his belt. He grumbled as he left towards the stairs. Right behind him, a much smaller coyote with awful, blue-tipped bangs that were ruffled and smeared with...something, signaled all of them to come in. He was wearing a dark robe and some slippers as he recounted the bills in his hand.

“This better be important, you fuckers had to cut me short and the dude only gave me half of the damn money and you know we’re short for this month.”

Salomon waved at him dismissively. “Yea, yea whatever, just go out for longer tomorrow.” Salomon furrowed his brows,recalling the man he just saw come out of his apartment.”And don’t bring them inside our fucking apartment maybe?!”

Roman didn’t respond to him, deciding to ignore Salomom and walk straight to the bathroom.

Cindy made herself comfortable on their couch,ignoring the other’s arguing, having been here a few times already.

Maroon cringed at the whole scene. He knew, realistically, that both Salomon and Roman were prostitutes, and he didn’t really care. But he mostly only saw them at the club, when they were well dressed and clean. He never got to see the aftermath of their job. Roman had looked disheveled and exhausted.

Everything around him looked disheveled, now that Maroon noticed. Bright and skimpy clothes draped almost every surface of the living room. The coffee table in the center was covered in several magazines, empty mugs of coffee and a concerning amount of drug paraphernalia. On the window ledge to the right of where he was standing was an ashtray, impossibly tall. To his left, on the kitchen breakfast bar sat Salomon himself, preoccupied with changing into some more comfortable clothes.

The kitchen wasn’t too dirty from what Maroon could see, just cluttered with bottles of alcohol and even more tabloid magazines.

After Salomon finished changing into a simple T-shirt and pants right in front of everyone present (much to Maroon’s dismay), he took a seat on the couch adjacent to Cindy, who had already lit up one of her own cigarettes.

“So, what brings you to my humble abode?” Salomon spoke up.

Cindy let out a puff of smoke.”Things went bad at a job.” It didn’t look like she was going to talk further.

Maroon looked back at Salomon, who didn’t seem fazed.

“That's it?” Maroon asked, frustration with her lack of explanation straining his voice.“So, you just dragged me out of my job in the middle of the fucking night because you… had a shitty day at work? Or something? And you want to make it my problem?”

Cindy just stared at Maroon, her impassive gaze grating on Marron’s nerves even more.

“What? Got nothing to say for yourself?”

No answer, again.

“Fine, then. I’m leaving.”

Maroon turned back to the door, ready to leave. He could feel his own annoyance sizzling inside of him. This whole thing was bullshit and he was going back to work. He pinched the bridge of his snout, wondering how the hell he was going to explain this to his boss.

He heard the creak of the couch behind him, right before he had the chance to open the door. Then, the sound of footsteps getting closer. He turned around to see Cindy, reaching towards his forearm.

He flinched back into the door, pushing Cindy away.

“Don’t fucking touch me!” He hissed right at Cindy.

Cindy roughly grabbed him by the shoulder, pulling him back towards the living room. He stumbled forwards, not expecting that kind of strength.

“You’re not going anywhere.” Anger bled into Cindy’s regularly monotone voice.

Maroon let out a feral screech and jumped at Cindy, pocket knife already in hand. He expected, with his advantage of height, to be able to easily tackle the shorter cat to the ground, but was stunned when Cindy barely even moved from her position, managing to grab him by the wrist. Maroon, still blinded by rage, kept screeching and trying to attack a mostly unfazed Cindy.

At this point, Salomon got up from his own spot to try and break up the, arguably, one-sided fight.

“Alright, y’all need to calm down-” Salomon stopped in his tracks when he saw Cindy pull out a gun from her waistband, aiming it at Maroon, who went completely still once he felt the cool barrel on his chest. He felt cornered now, with his right hand still in Cindy’s grip.

“Woah woah, hey, put that away,” Salomon tried to convince Cindy, without getting too close.

“You need to sit the fuck down,” Cindy whispered to Maroon. “And let me speak.” She pointed her words by pressing the gun further onto him.

His adrenaline was dissipating, leaving him shaky and fearful, but he didn’t want to cave into her, despite how clearly he was outpowered. He glanced back at Salomon, who was watching both of them from a few feet back, arms raised in defense. Put the knife down, mouthed the rabbit. He didn’t want to do that.

The sound of a door slamming shut echoed through the apartment, cutting through the tension like a knife. Everyone’s heads turned towards the noise.

Out came Roman, clad in nothing but a towel around his waist. He was fussing with his damp hair as he turned towards the group. His eyebrows shot up in surprise at the scene that his very presence had halted.

He glanced towards Salomon, looking for an explanation.

“What, the fuck,” he put a hand over his hip while waving the other towards the two people with knives and guns out, right in the middle of his house, “Is all this shit?”

“They’re both insane,is what it is! I'm not getting in the middle of this!”

Maroon just rolled his eyes as he dropped the knife. It wasn’t worth it anymore. He didn’t want to get shot by this crazy person and spend his final moments listening to these two clowns.

It felt like Cindy had a very similar thought, as she let go of him, putting the gun back to wherever it came from and went back to sitting on the couch.

Maroon sat on the couch directly in front of Cindy, nerves shot. Being held at gunpoint does that to a man. Roman, still pretty much naked, sat right next to him. It’s not like he can tell him to wear clothes inside his own house.

Cindy let out a long sigh, lighting up another cigarette, since the first once had already consumed itself on the ashtray during their little squabble.

“I understand that you are confused by the situation, but I can assure you that I would not drag a stranger with me if I didn’t have a good reason to do so.” She took a long drag out of her cigarette. “I understand that you, Roman and Salomon know each other to some degree. You work at Paragon, as well. With that in mind, I am going to trust that you are good enough at keeping your mouth shut.”

Maroon nodded, more out of fear of whatever he was going to hear than actually agreeing with her. The fact that she mentioned Paragon gave him an idea of what this was about. The club was...no stranger to shady things. A good chunk of his pay went to making sure he looked the other way. He had never gotten directly involved with the mafia though, assuming she had something to do with that.

“You are here for your own protection. You saw and spoke to me back at the club. The police are most likely combing through the city looking for someone that matches my description, and would most likely be questioning people at the club.”

Maroon was starting to understand now. “So you brought me here so I wouldn’t speak to the cops? Why didn’t you just...tell me that at the club?”

“Because bribing or threatening someone doesn’t guarantee that they won’t talk, especially when dealing with cops. I didn’t really know anything about you, so I couldn’t do much. The plan was to just kill you when I got you far enough from the club, but seeing that you know these two, I think I can afford to spare you.”

Maroon nodded fervently. He wasn’t that close to Roman or Salomon, but at this point he was just trying to keep his head on his shoulders, literally.

Roman was the next to speak up. “That’s nice and all, but why are you here anyways?” He asked rather boldly.

Cindy flicked the butt of her cigarette into the ashtray, one last cloud of smoke leaving her lips. The three men looked at her, anticipation replacing the tense atmosphere from before.

TBC